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WAKARUSA – In part to revive northern Indiana’s manufacturing economy, President Obama on Wednesday announced a $2.4 billion grant program to develop battery-powered vehicles.
Some of that money is coming to Fort Wayne.
Obama traveled to Wakarusa’s Monaco RV LLC plant to make the announcement. As part of the grant program, Obama said Monaco’s new owner, Navistar International Corp., will get $39 million to develop battery-powered trucks that can go at least 100 miles on a single charge.
Navistar CEO Dan Ustian said production will start early next year at the company’s Elkhart County plants. But design of the vehicles will take place at other Navistar sites, including in Fort Wayne, Ustian said.
It’s too early to say how many jobs will be created where, or how the money will be allocated. Navistar learned it had won the grant only last week, Ustian said, and Jack Allen, president of Navistar North American Truck Group, said the company committed to matching the grant with its own money.
Obama’s Wednesday visit to Elkhart County, which in June had a 16.8 percent unemployment rate, was his second this year. The president led a town meeting in February as the county’s unemployment was among the nation’s highest.
As he made the $2.4 billion grant announcement Wednesday, Obama stood in front of prototypes of Navistar’s electric trucks. Most members of the audience of about 200 were Navistar employees.
The workers were laid off when the plant’s former owner, Monaco Coach Corp., went bankrupt in December. An additional 398 lost jobs when Monaco closed a plant in Warsaw.
But the loss of more than 1,000 jobs was even more devastating to Wakarusa, a town of about 1,600 people.
Some workers went back to work at the Warsaw plant in June after Navistar bought some of Monaco’s assets.
Randy Trotter, 28, was one of them. He lives in Warsaw with his girlfriend and their two children and was out of work for nine months after being laid off from his job at the Monaco plant there.
“I got sick of fishing,” Trotter said, describing the worry of trying to support a family on $300 a week in unemployment.
To cheers, Obama told the crowd he knew what many there had been through.
Elkhart, LaGrange and some other counties in the region had seen their unemployment rates increase more than 10 percentage points in a year – among the most drastic increases in the United States, Obama said.
“These are challenges you know only too well,” Obama said, describing a “perfect storm” of economic troubles with which families in northern Indiana have to contend every day. “This is more than an economic crisis. It tests the heart and soul of a community.”
To help businesses get a jump on foreign competitors and diversify the products made in American factories, Obama, Vice President Biden and other administration officials fanned out across the Rust Belt on Wednesday to announce the $2.4 billion grant program. But by his presence in northern Indiana, Obama signaled the region’s importance.
In addition to the Navistar grant, money is going to develop battery and other electric-vehicle technologies in Muncie, Indianapolis and elsewhere in the state.
Obama said Indiana will be the second-largest recipient of educational money under the $2.4 billion program. Purdue University, Indiana University, the University of Notre Dame and Ivy Tech Community College all will receive money to develop curricula related to electric-vehicle technology, Obama said.
“I don’t want to import a hybrid car; I want to make it right here,” the president said.
Navistar CEO Ustian said expenditures on batteries and education will aid Navistar’s efforts.
“We’ve got to get the battery technology cost-effective,” he said after the event.
Obama told the RV workers that developing new technologies will make their jobs more secure.
“A few months ago, a lot of people thought your jobs were gone for good,” Obama said.
Trotter, the Warsaw worker who was laid off by Monaco, hopes his worries about work are over.
The new, Navistar-owned Monaco called Trotter in June and offered him a job at the Wakarusa plant. It meant an hour-and-15-minute drive, but Trotter was ecstatic to get back to work – and to have his pay increased $4, to $12 an hour. He’s also effusive about Obama.
“I think he’s fantastic,” Trotter said. “I’ve never seen a president who is for the people like he is.”
Will Palmer, 42, of Larwill, also is happy to make the drive to Wakarusa. He’s been tearing down equipment at the Warsaw plant but will start making the commute soon.
“I’m glad to have the work,” he said as he helped with security at Wednesday’s event.
In his 25 years working for the company that is now Monaco RV, DeVon Goodrich has seen several owners come and go. The Elkhart native said he hopes developing new technologies will bring much-needed stability to the industry and to his job. “My home is here,” Goodrich said. “I want to be right here.”
Obama said an important part of helping the U.S. economy recover is passage of a plan to change the health insurance industry. Outside the event, thousands showed up to wave signs supporting or opposing the plans, but supporters appeared to outnumber protesters heavily.
Inside the event, Lori Keith, a nurse from St. John, said she sees the problems with the health care system every day and she supports Obama’s ideas. She was invited by the White House to attend Wednesday’s event with her husband, Bill Keith, who owns a solar company in Warsaw.
